Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

ICIMS, a software company specializing in applicant tracking systems, has released their “2015 Job Seekers Get Social” report, detailing how social networks are playing a role in the recruiting and hiring process. Information contained in social networks such as LinkedIn, Google+, and Facebook is being used to populate data within online job applications.

Job seekers use their social networks to find job opportunities, research companies, share job openings with friends and get feedback from current and former employees regarding the inside intel on organizations they are considering working for.

According to the survey, 3.3 million applications were submitted online in 2015. Sixty-one percent (61%) of these applications came via LinkedIn, 22% came through Google+ and 17% were populated using Facebook. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of all job seekers surveyed indicated they rely on social media at least once a month to research possible employers.

Of the industry verticals included in the survey, job openings in Information Technology, Construction, and Leisure & Hospitality received the highest number of online applications via social networks. Public Administration, Financial Services, and Education & Health Services received the smallest number of online job applications fed by social networks.

Employers who do not fully embrace the potential effect of social networks on the recruiting and hiring process in today’s job market run the risk of losing out to their competitors when it comes to attracting top talent. By allowing job seekers to apply with their LinkedIn, Google+, or Facebook accounts, companies can offer candidates a quick and easy way to express interest in open jobs, protecting recruiting investments, and boosting the candidate experience and talent pipeline.

Need help figuring out how to best use social media for your recruiting purposes? Reach out to our Advice & Resolution team.

CAI Advice & Resolution team member Renee Watkins is a seasoned HR professional with a diverse background in Human Resource. Renee provides CAI members with practical advice in a wide-range of human resource functions including conflict resolution, compliance and regulatory issues, and employee relations.

In the past 5-10 years, social media platforms have taken the Internet by storm. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr and countless other social platforms are used by businesses and organizations for marketing, recruiting, thought leadership and overall brand awareness. With the vast variety of social media platforms and uses, it can be a challenge to know everything about social media and how it can fit in with your company’s goals.

For those businesses that have just started out in the social media world, here are a few tips to help you start your social media use.

Target Your Desired Audience

Like other types of marketing and communication tools, audience targeting is extremely important on social media. Building your audience is extremely important, but you also need to target your audience so you can reach your customers, investors, employees and surrounding community. Make a note of who likes your Facebook page and follows you on Twitter instead of just setting a target number. That way you can reach a large audience that will actually want to engage with your business.

Connect With Your Audience

Once you have targeted your desired audience, it is time to connect with them. Connecting is important across social platforms and can be done in a variety of ways. It may seem easier to put out content every day or every week and then let people read it, but social media has the capability of generating two-way communication. Take advantage of what it has to offer and message followers on Twitter and Facebook or tweet at someone to engage in conversation. Don’t limit yourself – start a dialogue!

Choose the Appropriate Platform(s)

There are numerous platforms, but you may find that only a few work for your company and actually reach your target audience. It is important to focus on the appropriate platforms that your audience is on instead of spreading yourself thin amongst five or more platforms when only two are actually connecting with your audience. For example, Facebook is an extremely popular and valuable platform, but that does not mean it is appropriate for every company. Evaluate multiple social platforms to figure out which ones work best for your company.

Engage Employees

While you may only have a few people running your company’s social media pages (or only one!), it is helpful to have employees engage on social media with the business as well. Encourage employees that have social media accounts to share and like content so that you can reach more people. This can help generate credibility and exposure.

Social media use is perfected through practice, exposure and research. For more information on social media for businesses go to www.facebook.com/cai.hr.nc or www.twitter.com/caihr.

The following is a guest post from Paige Holden. She is the Director of Communications for XONEX Relocation and Holman Moving Systems. She is also the lead editor and regular blogger for Mastering Mobility: HR’s Guide to Relo. This article was originally written for Software Advice, a company that reviews and recommends HRIS solutionsto companies seeking to streamline their HR functions.

Social media sharing has changed almost every aspect of the workplace. Acting as the great equalizer, employees may have just as much visibility on the web (and sometimes more) as their employer.

And now that younger workers are entering the workforce–a generation that grew up with these social media tools and personal transparency as the norm–HR departments that have traditionally kept a tight lid on sensitive information are faced with a new challenge: how to keep confidential and proprietary information under wraps.

Now more than ever, employers need to have a plan in place to deal with office gossip and complaints that, in the past, were confined to the relative obscurity of the break room. These rumors and gripes can now go viral, impacting a company’s reputation–and perhaps even their bottom line.

So what can companies do to prepare themselves for online oversharing? I’ve outlined five strategies businesses can employ to stay on top of the online conversation:

1. Be Aware

The first step to managing social media behavior is to know that Pandora’s box has been opened. Conversations that used to happen at the water cooler are absolutely happening online today. It’s human nature to want to learn as much as possible about the things that affect you—and workplace issues fundamentally affect us all, in different ways, every day. Salary, health benefits, relocation benefits and inter-office politics are ripe for discussion and debate.

Often, the knee-jerk reaction is to over-regulate, but this can square companies against employees’ freedom of speech—a losing battle from both a legal and reputational perspective.

2. Have Departments Collaborate to Monitor the Conversation

Foraging into social media without proper experience or knowledge is a bad idea. If companies want to have a larger and more influential presence on the web, departments should collaborate for optimal results. Social media monitoring is a great opportunity for the HR and communications (or marketing) departments to work together.

3. Look for Patterns and Address Issues Accordingly

Identifying common types of conversations and complaints can help you figure out employees’ main concerns so you can take steps to resolve them.

Having a broad view of the conversation can also help HR managers identify trouble spots in the company and give management teams real-time feedback on workforce issues, which is a great tool for tweaking policies and mitigating any discontent.

4. Develop and Execute a Social Media Policy

A good social media policy will remove any guesswork when it comes to what should and shouldn’t be shared on social media, and remind employees why certain things should remain private.

5. Create Layers of Transparency

The million dollar question is whether or not social media and oversharing will push companies to be more transparent. The answer is yes—both internally and externally.

As we continue to move forward into the digital age with employees who demand open lines of communication, HR managers will have to take a good, hard look at corporate culture. Is it shifting? Are employees’ needs changing? Most importantly, is HR changing with them? Sometimes it’s easier to tune out the noise. But the reality is that the world is changing quickly, and companies that are open and engaged will have a distinct competitive advantage, especially as it pertains to recruitment and retention.

The post below was contributed by Greg Moran, the CEO of Chequed.com, a Predictive Talent Selection suite used by organizations like Subway and Disney to hire better. You can keep up to date with Greg on twitter @CEOofChequed.

As the liability of a bad hire increases, recruiters around the world are embarking on the search for new, more effective means for finding the right candidates. Yet, there’s no reason to take to the hills or sail the seven seas if the plethora of social media remains untapped by your HR department. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn aren’t just about status updates and games like Farmville anymore. They also serve as great facilitators for the candidate selection process.

However, the question isn’t only whether or not you’re using social media, but whether you’re using it effectively. You won’t be surprised to learn that by only occasionally posting available positions or haphazardly firing out job alerts on Twitter won’t win the heart of many candidates. Rather, it’s important to use social media in a way that not only scans for potential candidates, but that truly connects your HR department with quality candidates.

But before we go any further, we must first note that while social media and web research can be invaluably beneficial, it is critical that prospective employers use such tools ethically. Recruiters are responsible for investigating candidate and reference checks in a manner that is objective and in accordance with legal standards (for more information checkout the legal issues of reference checking). Information pertaining to a candidate’s health, sexual orientation or religion should be avoided at best, ignored at the least. As long as such sentiments are clear, recruiters are encouraged to jump into the world of social media with enthusiasm and high expectations!

Earlier this year, Bullhorn and CareerXroads both released reports indicating that LinkedIn was the most relied upon social media tool of all recruiters. But there’s no reason to put all of your eggs in one basket! Get creative; branch out. For instance, the same Bullhorn report found that a Twitter follower is nearly three times more likely to apply to a job posting than a LinkedIn connection. Pinterest, the site of virtual personalized pin boards, and Foursquare, the individualized GPS system, are both great tools for researching a candidate’s background. Likewise, they can provide a fair amount of information regarding the candidate’s intentions and ambitions.

Similarly, wise recruiters understand that leading candidates can often be linked back to the references they provide and that these references may one day become job candidates themselves. Be sure to call upon the social media described above to learn more about the names listed as references on a candidate’s application. Doing so may not only validate the quality of the reference, but may also allow for a quality opportunity to network with the reference.

It’s important to understand that much of social media is user generated, indicating that your candidate may have carefully censored the information he or she made available. So to supplement the smorgasbord of sometimes-bias social media, don’t forget to include basic Google searches in your candidate selection process. Google has a tendency to turn up information that is not user generated, but that will be equally vital in your selection process, such as previous convictions.

While recruiting is an age-old field, the methods involved therein don’t need to be antiquated. Social media, when used effectively and ethically, allows human resource representatives to increase productivity, reduce total expenditure, and subsequently improve hiring outcomes. It’s an equation that makes sense.

Today is the first day of spring. During the season of rebirth and renewal, people are eager to clean out their cluttered garages, revamp their tired wardrobes or get started on projects they keep putting off. Similarly to the improved changes you can make to yourself or your home, your organization can also take part in a transformation.

Giving your company a good spring cleaning will help you uncover inefficient and unnecessary workflows or outgrown policies and procedures. Here are three areas you should be sure to keep clean:

Social Media

More than 50 percent of people in the United States visit social media sites. The different internet communication channels will help you showcase your brand and connect with your customers in several ways. However, if you don’t have a strong social media policy, the disadvantages of the tools might outweigh the benefits. Drafting a sound policy can protect your company from risks, such as a reveal of confidential documents or slander from disgruntled employees. See what to include in your social media policy here: Create a Social Media Policy to Protect Your Business and Employer Brand.

Employee Reviews

Giving your staff positive and constructive feedback is critical for the development of their careers and the success of your organization. Annual reviews include the summation of the feedback you give to your team members throughout the year and the goals you want to help them accomplish. Make sure you take adequate time to prepare for them. Performance reviews conducted correctly help your employees focus on achieving success. See how your performance review process measures up here: Four Key Elements for Conducting Productive Employee Performance Reviews.

Low Performers and Poor Behavior

Poor performance can impede workplace productivity. Useless distractions or careless mistakes from staff members waste your organizations resources, time and money. Coworkers of poor behaving employees can also be affected if they have to pick up the slack or spend more time fixing errors. Although confronting low-performing workers can be challenging, taking care of the situation quickly will help your organization maintain success and high employee morale. See tips for helping your poor performers improve their work habits here: Addressing Poor Performance in the Workplace.

Keep the practices in these three areas of people management up to date and well documented to set your company up for year-round success. For more information on workplace spring cleaning tips, please call a member of CAI’s Advice and Counsel Team at 919-878-9222 or 336-668-7746.

Nearly 64 percent of internet users in the United States visit social networking sites, according to data from eMarketer. Knowing that more than half of the country’s internet users participate on these sites, it is a safe bet to assume that some of your employees are also participating.

Social media allows organizations to increase their brand awareness and interact on multiple levels with their customers. Although your company will experience several benefits when taking part in different networking sites, there are risks to be aware of as well.

As an employer, it is important to understand how your workforce’s interactions on the internet can affect your company and brand. Legal experts recommend drafting a policy that informs employees of appropriate uses of social media to help your company reduce its risk of unfavorable business situations, which can include but are not limited to:

A reveal of confidential or propriety information

The presence of negative comments about your company from employees

A lawsuit regarding copyright infringement

Include the following must-have subjects in your company’s policy to reduce adverse effects from social media:

Guidelines

State that your company respects employees’ rights to use social networking sites. Inform them that you understand social media’s importance and their desire to express themselves. Let them know, however, that you have created guidelines to embrace the emerging technology and ensure that they use it responsibly. Make it clear to employees that your company’s policies regarding issues, such as equal employment opportunity and harassment, also apply to their use of social media at work.

Responsibility

Notify employees that their activity on social media sites should not be considered private. Although many networks allow their users to control their privacy settings, employees must be aware that others, including their friends, followers or connections, will view their content. They should also know that their actions on the internet are permanent, even if they make attempts to remove or delete information or conceal their identity. Explain to employees that they should use common sense and consider how their actions on social media can affect the company’s reputation and their own. Include language that says employees can be held legally liable for their online activities.

Respect

Protect your organization by encouraging employees who are upset, frustrated or angry to have private conversations with their managers or coworkers instead of posting critical comments on social media sites. Taking this step will help protect your employer brand. Employees must respect company information, whether it concerns coworkers or customers. Your policy should state that workers can not disclose confidential or propriety company information on the internet, and they will be disciplined if they do. Additionally, make employees aware of copyright and fair use rules. They need to know that copyright infringement and plagiarism laws also apply to the internet, so they should reference their sources and abide by copyright standards.

Data shows that some of your employees are most likely interacting with social media. Defend your brand and educate employees by drafting a comprehensive policy. For more information on using social media to promote business and avoid risks, or for additional help on drafting a policy, please call a member of CAI’s Advice and Counsel Team at 919-878-9222 or 336-668-7746.

Have you seen the social media traffic stats on the night of Sunday, May 1, 2011? While President Barack Obama announced to the world that a U.S. military team killed Osama Bin Laden, Twitter topped 5,000 tweets per second. Care to guess how many of your employees updated their Facebook status that night? The news spread like wildfire on various social media channels, per CNN’s report, as details unfolded through reputable and highly-followed twitter users.

More and more businesses are jumping into social media to educate consumers and create brand awareness. At the same time, this way of communicating has also changed how organizations approach their own workforce, by offering another method of sending out information. A 2010 Watson Wyatt survey showed the most popular topics to engage employees through social media are collaboration and team building, adapting to change, and promoting health and wellness. On the other hand, for messages around business changes, employees widely prefer face-to-face communication. Social media provides another avenue to engage employees in a way they like to receive information.

Paper memos are a thing of the past. Long-winded emails may be going in that direction as well. Here’s a thought: Try pasting the next employee memo you compose into Microsoft Word and conduct a Flesch-Kincaid readability test. If your memo scores higher than a seventh or eighth grade level, some employees may not understand it. It’s hard for employees to genuinely care about what goes on in your company when information is presented at a level they don’t understand. Keep it simple if you want to reach everyone in your company with the message.

For years now, IBM has engaged with employees through social media, even before they used social media externally for marketing. Companies such as Virgin Media have gone the route of video blogging on a YouTube channel exclusively for employees. Viewers see and hear someone as if they are speaking only to them, and yet a wide audience is being reached. Also, this offers workers the opportunity for commenting in a public forum.

Who doesn’t like to hold the remote? Like most individuals, your employees probably prefer to control their own communication experience. By asking questions, offering suggestions and learning other employees’ perspectives, they create news that is relevant to them on a level that makes sense. What is a better way to become a true stakeholder? Forums, blogs and social networks are a great way to encourage employees to connect and interact.

If you’re not using social media in your organization yet, internally or externally, it’s never too late to start. Many resources are out there to help you get started. A few helpful links are listed below.

From July 29 through Aug. 29, 2010, CAI conducted a survey on “Social Media in the Workplace” with 227 member organizations. The results have been compiled and include some of the following observations:

Social media policies in member organizations vary widely. While 24 percent have formal policies in place, 33 percent have only guidelines and 43 percent have none.

Depending on job role, 41 percent allow employees to access social media during work hours. Fewer (25 percent) allow access regardless of job role, while 35 percent do not allow access at all.

More than a third of respondents reported obstacles to using social media in their organizations. They included lack of policies or guidelines in place (47 percent); impact on employee productivity (46 percent); concern about legal issues (46 percent); and lack of knowledge in using tools (44 percent).

Nearly half of all organizations surveyed use social media for networking/relationship building and branding/marketing. Another 20 percent are considering using social media for these initiatives.

Some 30 to 41 percent use social media for external communication, reaching new customers, recruiting and sales.

A large majority (84 percent) of organizations believe their use of social media for business purposes will increase over the next one to three years.

The results indicate that while most respondents believe social media will be part of the business world in the near future, if not already in their current activities, they are not necessarily setting any guidelines or policy on its use. Legal experts are warning that an absence of such rules can result in situations of employees using social media that put employers at risk, including:

Revealing confidential or proprietary information via social media that can be viewed by millions.

Making discriminatory or other critical comments regarding the company, its employees and/or its clients.

Promoting the company’s services or products without disclosing the employment relationship.

CAI can provide your company with guidelines in developing a social media policy that satisfies any goals you and your organization have regarding using social media effectively for recruiting, sales and/or networking while providing you with adequate legal coverage for employees who abuse the privilege.

For information on how to create this policy or to discuss related issues to this item, including more survey results, please call a member of CAI’s Advice and Counsel team at (919) 878-9222 or (336) 668-7746.

To add to the dilemma, how can an organization forbidding social media activity monitor employees who partake of them on their personal mobile devices? It is a growing concern among owners and operators of businesses in all sizes, and unfortunately, according to the latest word from the American Bar Association, it is still unclear legally how much control employers can exert over their employees.

Yet there are some basic measures you can take, if you feel uncomfortable about an outright social media ban yet do not want your employees to spend an excessive amount of time updating their status on Facebook, Twitter and the like. They include the following:

Inform employees that the terms of your company’s equal employment opportunity, sexual harassment and other policies extend to social media use at work as well. They do not have a license to blog on whatever they feel like on your company time.

Review with your employees the fact that commenting about legal matters or litigation involving your organization via social media is not allowed. The same rule applies to any work-related grievances.

Encourage employees to ask questions and discuss issues with their supervisors regarding whether their social media activity may affect their workplace. This dialogue can help them realize the differences between their personal opinions and the positions taken by your organization, and why it is essential to separate them.

Remind them that the Internet is permanent, even if they “remove/delete” the comment later or attempt to make it anonymous. They should know they can be held personally responsible for any content you post online. That warning alone may curtail them from extraneous social media activity.

Employees should know they can be held legally liable for anything they write or present online. That includes, but is not limited to, commentary, content, or images judged defamatory, pornographic, proprietary, harassing, libelous, or creating a hostile work environment.

For more details on how you can establish social media use policies for your employees, please call a member of CAI’s Advice and Counsel team at (919) 878-9222 or (336) 668-7746.

We are pleased to announce the introduction of CAI’s new Twitter account, @CAIHR!

Our new Twitter account will be used as a forum to share and discuss current stories and events in the world of HR. Through this account, we look forward to connecting more personally with other professionals and discussing the latest employer issues. We are constantly finding interesting articles and cases that we can now offer immediately with others who hold common interests.

We also look forward to hearing what other HR professionals have to say and learning from them. We are excited about the dialogue that will come from our page as well as meeting new people throughout the world of HR.

We invite you to follow us to keep up with the latest information and stay involved. We hope you will take the time to visit our page, share your thoughts with us and tell others who are interested to join us as followers as well.

Who We Are

CAI is a non-profit member based organization. We help more than 1,000 North Carolina member companies maximize employee engagement and minimize employer liability. We serve the greater Research Triangle, Piedmont, Triad and 65 central and eastern counties of North Carolina.